


I Wouldn’t Lie (About This)

by shipNslash



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: 5 Things, 5+1, Ben Hargreeves is Dead, Drug Addiction, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, It’s just a rocky road, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, Klaus’ powers are tricky, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, They’re all trying, five things, talking with ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 13:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18262733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipNslash/pseuds/shipNslash
Summary: Klaus feels frozen, eyes locked with the figure in the corner. “But- there’s a ghost, Allison! Right there!”Allison squints and looks to where Klaus is pointing. “And? Is it doing something?” She asks, planting her hands on her hips.“Doing something?” Klaus laughs a little and it sounds hysterical, even to his own ears. “She’s being a ghost! She’s dead and staring at us!”~Five times one of his siblings don’t believe what Klaus has to say about the dead and one sibling who doesn’t believe what he has to say about the living. Featuring five misguided Hargreeves, one very exasperated ghost, and our resident Gay Disaster™.





	I Wouldn’t Lie (About This)

**Author's Note:**

> These poor, pathetic, emotionally stunted (wo)man children. Enjoy their pain.

 

 

 

~~ONE~~ALLISON~~

 

 

They’re ten and Allison is Klaus’ favorite sibling- well, maybe not his favorite, per se, but she’s the one he’s having the most fun with at this specific moment.

 

They’re crowded close on her bed, painting each other’s toenails and giggling about the MTV interview they’re doing next week, and he thinks that it’s one of the best nights he’s had in a long time. Ben and Vanya are both nice, of course, but they’re too scared of getting in trouble with Dad to do this kind of stuff. Diego thinks he’s too cool to play kid games any more, Five thinks he’s too smart, and Luther thinks he’s too responsible.

 

Allison, though, she knows how to have fun.

 

“Do you think that I should straighten my hair?” She tugs at a strand and studies it, going cross eyed in her examination. “Or leave it natural?”

 

Klaus tilts his head and hm’s. “Natural. You wore it straight on Good Morning America last month.”

 

“Good point,” she agrees and turns her attention back to the neon green varnish she’s carefully applying to Klaus’ bare feet.

 

He’s doing hers in a much more understated forest green and is just finishing her first foot when he freezes. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see a shadow solidifying from something indistinct to something... “Al- Allison!”

 

Klaus jerks across the bed and wraps his skinny arms around his sister, pulling her behind him. She gasps, only... it’s not fear that colors her tone- it’s anger. “What the heck, Klaus?” She snaps, voice cross. “You spilled the nail polish all over my blanket!” She grabs a few tissues to start dabbing at the mess but it only smears it around.

 

“Allison!” Klaus repeats, voice coming out as a whimper. “Forget the stupid nail polish, there’s a-”

 

“Forget the nail polish? Dad is going to kill us if he finds out I was painting your nails!” Allison pulls away from her brother with a huff and starts tugging the blanket off her bed.

 

Klaus feels frozen, eyes locked with the figure in the corner. “But- there’s a ghost, Allison! Right there!”

 

Allison squints and looks to where Klaus is pointing. “And? Is it doing something?” She asks, planting her hands on her hips.

 

“Doing something?” Klaus laughs a little and it sounds hysterical, even to his own ears. “She’s being a ghost! She’s dead and staring at us!”

 

“And? She can’t hurt you. Look.” She picks up a throw pillow and tosses it across the room with impressive accuracy, considering all she sees is air.

 

The ghost, previously content with just staring, flickers when the pillow phases through her and starts- “Ahhh!”

 

The scream she lets out is shrill and piercing and from her open mouth pours out oozing, congealed blood. Klaus squeezes his eyes shut and slams his hands over his ears but it doesn’t do anything to block out the wailing. He doesn’t mean to start yelling too but as soon as he does, Allison all but tackles him, little palm covering his mouth with a quiet smack.

 

“Klaus!” She hisses quietly. “Shut up! Someone is going to catch us breaking curfew!”

 

He only whimpers and thrashes in her hold. “Allison! Make her go away!” He cries, unable to feel any shame at the tears streaming down his face.

 

“It’s only a ghost! You see them every day!” She shakes her head, lips twisting up in annoyance, before yanking him to his feet by his shoulders. “Really, Klaus,” she scolds. “Just stop conjuring her if she’s that scary.”

 

Klaus peaks at the corner and can only moan in fear when the woman choking on her own blood has been joined by a man with glass splinters embedded in his face. He starts shouting and, unlike the woman, they’re not just witless screeches. “Help me! Help me! My daughter was in the car, is she alright? Is my daughter alive?!”

 

“I don’t know how!” He tries to bury his face in Allison’s shoulder but she shoves him away.

 

Once she manages to make eye contact with him, she only rolls her own eyes. “It’s your power, just do it,” she tells him, as if it were that simple.

 

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!” He whines and presses the heels of his palms into his eye sockets until it hurts. “No, no, no! Go away!”

 

He thinks he loses time after that because the next thing he’s aware of is Luther carting him down the hallway like a bag of flour, Allison hurrying along at their side and angrily shushing him the whole way. After Luther dumps him in his bed and backs away in obvious annoyance, Allison’s normally sweet face enters his field of vision.

 

“I love you, Klaus,” she sighs. “But ghosts can’t be that scary. Grow up.”

 

And then she leaves, flicking off the light dismissively.

 

 

~~TWO~~VANYA~~

 

 

At thirteen, Klaus has found endless delight in booze, weed, and the artistic stylings of Evanescence. None of the others find these things as amusing as he does, which is real shame; Vanya in particular could probably benefit from a little of the devil’s lettuce.

 

At present, she looks so tightly wound that Klaus is surprised she’s even standing. The only thing keeping her from actually collapsing, he assumes, is that she’s determined not to draw that much attention to herself. Expect she is drawing attention to herself. Standing in Klaus’ doorway, clutching a text book to her chest and stammering, she’s managed to draw at least two sets of eyes her way, both Klaus and Ben’s.

 

“Sorry, Teeny-Tiny-Vany, could you repeat that?” Klaus asks, too confused on his sister’s actual presence to have heard what she mumbled the first time.

 

Straightening her little spine and holding out the book in her little hands, Vanya clears her throat. “I said I want you to conjure Five,” she repeats.

 

“What?!” Ben gasps at Klaus’ side. “You have no right to-”

 

Klaus cuts Ben off with a hand on his shoulder. “Dad already made me try and I didn’t find him.”

 

“Please!” Vanya yelps and then winces like raising her voice is a crime.

 

Well, maybe it is. Vanya has always been held to a different standard than the rest of them and maybe in exchange for not being forced to murder bank robbers, she isn’t allowed to do anything but whisper.

 

Shaking the thought away, Klaus unfolds himself and stands. “Sissy, I’m sorry, but he’s not out there. Wherever Five went, he’s alive.” Or dead in the future, he doesn’t say out loud.

 

“Please try again!” Vanya pleads, holding out the book. “Here’s his favorite book. You can use it as a talisman to-”

 

“I said no!” Klaus snaps, voice cracking.

 

Vanya flinches back and Ben winces. “Klaus, you don’t have to yell-”

 

His glare is enough to cut Ben off. “Apparently,” he hisses and stomps over to the air vent where he’s stashed his weed. “I do. Because nobody-” He tugs the vent loose and fishes out one of the blunts and a lighter. “-in this god forsaken house understands why I don’t want to spend all day trying to talk to my dead brother.” His hands shake as he tries to light his smoke and across the room, Vanya’s normally timid eyes crease in something akin to anger.

 

“Oh, I see,” she hisses. “It’s not that you don’t know if he’s dead or not. You just can’t be bothered to look.”

 

Klaus stiffens and gives up on his lighter, spinning to face his sister. “I don’t know why you think you have any say,” he snarls. “Because as far as I can tell, what I do or don’t do with my power is Umbrella Academy business. What happened to Five is Umbrella Academy business. Whether I decide to use my powers to try and conjure Five is Umbrella Academy business. And, hm, let me think-” Klaus puts on a dramatic thinking pose and taps his chin with the dead lighter. “Oh, that’s right! You. Aren’t. On. The. Team.”

 

Vanya sniffles and shrinks in on herself and disappears from the doorway as smoothly as one of the ghosts that Klaus drinks away. He huffs and turns his attention back to his joint and, by the time he’s gotten it light and sucked down a deep, heavy drag, he already feels guilty for the way he’d snapped.

 

“You didn’t have to be mean to her,” Ben sighs from his spot on the bed. “He was her only friend. Imagine how you’d feel if I died.”

 

“Shut up, Ben. You’re too boring to die.”

 

 

~~THREE~~LUTHER~~

 

 

Ben is dead.

 

Ben is dead and Klaus is moments away from killing himself, handful of colorful pills swimming in his teary vision, when the stupid, stupid fucker’s ghost pops up and asks if he can put on his Beastie Boys album.

 

“It’s quiet, being dead,” he says, tactfully not mentioning the pills or Klaus’ very, very manly shriek.

 

When his heart stops thumping like breeding rabbits, he laughs, cries, tries to hug a ghost, phases right through Ben, and falls to the ground in a pathetic little pile. “Took you long enough,” he whimpers into the musty carpet.

 

“Well, you didn’t exactly leave me a road map,” Ben snips and squats until they’re eye level. “The other side is... confusing. And it wasn’t easy finding you when you’re this high.”

 

Klaus shudders and nods. “My bad. I assumed you were happy in heaven or something.”

 

“If there is a heaven, I didn’t find it. Can I... stay here? With you?” Ben looks a little shy and he twists his hands in a familiar gesture.

 

Klaus laughs again and he’s still crying but he can’t stop. “Of course you can stay, Benji! Please don’t leave! Please stay, please stay-” Klaus is cut off by his bedroom door being flung open.

 

Luther staggers in, eyes wide and panicked. “What’s happening?!” He demands, taking in the scene; his drug dependent brother sobbing hysterically on the ground in a pile of pills, blubbering to the air in front of him.

 

Klaus scrambles into a sitting position and wipes at his face. “Ben is here!”

 

“Ben? Here?” Luther’s worried expression goes sour. “You’re high, Klaus,” he spits out. “We both know you can’t conjure anybody when you’re high. Don’t lie about things like that.”

 

Ben frowns. “No, Luther, I’m here,” he says, tone sad.

 

“Can- you can’t see him but he’s here!” Klaus gasps.

 

“I said,” Luther snaps, volume rising. “Don’t lie!”

 

Klaus shrinks back even as Ben stands. “Don’t talk to him like that, Luther.”

 

Klaus looks back and forth between his two brothers and swallows. “He... he really is here,” he whispers softly.

 

“Oh? Then enlighten me, Klaus, what does our dearly departed brother have to say?” And then Luther strides forward and yanks Klaus to his feet by his collar, giving him a little shake.

 

“He- Gees, Luther, ease up on the threads!” Klaus scratches at his brother’s grip until the taller boy releases him. “I don’t know! What do you have to say, Ben?”

 

When he turns to face his brother, Ben opens and closes his mouth a few times. “I- uh... Tell him that I don’t blame him for what happened? That I know it was Dad’s fault?”

 

Klaus nods and turns back to Luther. “He said he doesn’t blame you for his sashimi act and that he knows it was our dear papa’s fault.” He turns back to Ben to ask if there was anything else and-

 

-And is completely unprepared for the punch to the chest that his super-strong brother sends his way.

 

“What the heck, Luther?” Ben shouts and goes to help a gasping Klaus, only for his hands to phase right through his brother’s shoulders.

 

“Yeah, what the heck?” Klaus yelps, trying to still his heart for the second time in ten minutes. “What’s with the kill rage?!”

 

Luther’s chest is heaving and his eyes are red rimmed and Klaus wonders if he’s finally going to see Number One cry. “It’s bad enough that you’re lying about seeing him, Klaus, don’t you dare put words in his mouth like that. If you try and tarnish Ben’s memory again, you’ll have to answer to me!”

 

Klaus struggles to his knees and groans in pain. “I’m not fucking lying, ass hat! He’s right here and that’s what he said!” He points to Ben, still crouched beside him.

 

“You and I both know,” Luther snarls, “that Ben would never say that about Dad. That all you!” And then he’s gone in a swirl of heteronormative, Anglo-Saxon fury.

 

The room is so silent that Klaus looks back over his shoulder and sighs in relief when Ben is still there. “Sorry about that.”

 

“It’s not your fault,” Ben says with a shrug. “Sorry I... ya know, died and left you alone.”

 

Klaus only waves his hand around dismissively. “Just don’t leave me again, okay?” His tone is uninterested, casual, but his eyes are large and afraid.

 

“You shouldn’t even have to ask, Klaus.”

 

“Love you, Benji.”

 

 

~~FOUR~~DIEGO~~

 

 

After Ben’s death, things... fall apart.

 

Diego leaves the day after their eighteenth birthday without ceremony, stopping only to slip a scrap of paper into Klaus’ hand. “Call me if you’re ever ready to get clean,” he says, eyes sad.

 

“Call me if you’re every ready to get high,” Klaus quips and barely dodges Diego’s fist. “Love you too, brother!”

 

Klaus doesn’t ever call Diego; at least, not on his own. Over the next dozen years, he is called by four EMTs, three ER nurses, two twelve step program sponsors, and one parole officer in a pleated suit. Diego shows up every time without fail, scolds Klaus -regardless of his state of consciousness at the time of the visit- and then leaves in a surlier mood than he showed up with.

 

That was the past, though, and this is the present.Or a quantum suspended pocket universe of the present, at least, if Five is to be believed. So Klaus figures he might as well get a jump start on the brotherly bonding while he’s still squeaky sober-clean and -since he’s had luck conjuring Dave a few times- decides he should give Patch a try.

 

He starts by breaking into Diego’s room to find a talisman and comes away with a rabbit foot keychain that has seen better days. Then he settles himself, cross-legged, on the pool table in the basement (he likes the velvety top) and tries to create a meeting place. It isn’t as easy as it had been with Dave but he manages it eventually; a grimy but well loved desk in an abandoned police station. And then-

 

“Hey. You’re Diego’s brother.”

 

Klaus opens his eyes and smiles. “That I am, my sweet, sweet officer of the law. Klaus Hargreeves at your service.”

 

Patch smiles and holds out a hand. “Nice to meet you,” she says pleasant. “Too bad it’s in the land of the dead. But you aren’t dead, right? You’re the one that can talk to ghosts?” She tilts her head in examination of him and Klaus preens under the attention.

 

"Right again! Now!” He claps his hands together and smiles. “Give me a message for Diego. I should be able to physically conjure you soon, I’m still working on my skills, but I can act as your telephone for awhile. Is there anything you want to say?”

 

“Tell him... that I’m sorry I wasn’t more help. That he is one of my dearest friends and I’ll always love him. That he’s my hero. Tell him-”

 

And then she starts to fade out, existence flickering like a bad light bulb. Klaus squeezes his eyes in concentration and tries to maintain the connection- only to be rudely pulled back into the land of the living by the cool press of a knife against his neck.

 

“What. Are you. Doing.”

 

Klaus blinks open an eye and squints at Diego. “Well, hello to you, too, brother of mine, is there- Hey! Gees!” Klaus tumbles to the ground after a quick push and glares up at his brother.

 

“I said, what do you think you’re doing?!” Diego shouts, face screwed up in anger. “Allison said she saw you going through my stuff. You looking for something to pawn or what?”

 

“No! No, Diego, I’m clean! Here!” Klaus fishes the rabbit foot keychain out of his pocket and dangles it for display.

 

It’s ripped from his grip in an instant. “What do you want with Patch’s stuff?!”

 

Klaus rolls his eyes and climbs to his feet. “I was trying to conjure her, before you so rudely interrupted. We were really making progress,” he says surly.

 

“You- What?” Diego goes still and his eyes light up with something distinctly un-Diego-like; hope. “Did you- did you really see her?”

 

“Oui, oui, mon frère! And, oh, what a vision is she!” Klaus dusts imaginary lint off his pants and tries to contain his excitement- his pride, really, at what he’s accomplished so far. 

 

Diego doesn’t share Klaus’ enthusiasm. He shrinks up a little and drops his chin to his chest. “H- how mad at me is she?”

 

Klaus frowns. “Mad? Diego, she’s not mad. Especially not at you. She told me to tell you she loves you and that you’re her hero.” He reaches out to rest a hand on Diego’s shoulder but his brother slaps his hand away.

 

“Don’t bull shit me, Klaus,” he snarls. “Listen, I’m glad that you’re trying to step up your brother act but you don’t have to soften the blow, okay? I know she must hate me.”

 

“She doesn’t-” The slam of the door is loud and Klaus sighs in defeat. “-hate you.”

 

~~FIVE~~FIVE~~

 

After six weeks in the pocket-verse, Klaus is both stone cold sober and stone cold bored.

 

“Can I pleeaase go to, like, a rave? It doesn’t have to be a big one! Just one teensy-weensy little rave!” He’s spread under the dining table pushing around pieces of a puzzle at Vanya’s suggestion -she claimed it was calming- but his fingers can’t seem to stop their twitching. “I’m! So! Bored!”

 

“No,” Ben says, even though he sounds just as bored.

 

Sitting on a chair like the boring old man that he is, Five swings a leg in Klaus’ direction. “No.”

 

Klaus scowls as he extracts himself from under the table. “Yeah, Ben already said no, Grandpa,” he mutters.

 

“Ben’s here?” Five asks, peering over his book on black holes with sudden interest. “Since when?”

 

“I dunno. He’s usually around, unless I’m jerking it or something,” Klaus adds dismissively.

 

“Dude! He did not need to know that!” “I did not need to know that, Klaus!”

 

He laughs at the way both of his brothers wrinkle their noses in disgust. “Sorry, can’t help myself,” he snickers and goes to make himself a cup of coffee.

 

From the table, Five watches with his lip curled up. “That’s disgusting. That much sugar could kill a small horse.”

 

“It’s better than cocaine,” Klaus offers. “And trust me, that’s the alternative.”

 

And then Five is making some underhanded comment about how Klaus would know but he doesn’t really hear it. Out of the corner of the room, a nondescript shadow starts to solidify and slither closer, until ‘it’ is a ‘he’ and he is looming over the oblivious Five. He’s dressed in some kind of special ops gear, shoulder sporting an obvious bullet hole and neck at an unnatural angle. His brother keeps talking but Klaus can’t seem to drag his eyes away from the uninvited guest until Ben shouts his name.

 

“Klaus!”

 

“Ah!” He jerks a little in shock and his hot coffee sloshes over his hands. “Christ in a cracker! What?!”

 

Five looks around in confusion- which puts him unknowingly face to face with the ghost. “What’s going on?” He questions.

 

Klaus blinks and sucks in a shuddering breath. He’s been working on the honesty thing lately, so... “There’s just- a ghost. Besides for Ben, that is. Another ghost.”

 

“Where? Who?” Five turns back to Klaus with that inquisitive stare he does so well.

 

“Um. Right behind you,” Klaus points. “I- don’t know who-” He steels himself and faces the ghost head on. “What’s- what’s your name?”

 

The stranger tilts his head. “I’m Stanley. Am I really dead?” He asks, sounding more curious than distressed.

 

Klaus feels his throat work. “Um. Yes. Yes, you’re dead, Stanley. Can you... tell me why you’re here?”

 

“Oh. I remember now. He killed me.” And then he points a steady finger at Five.

 

“Oh? Oh. Um, I’m? Sorry? Sorry about that?” Klaus shifts awkwardly and spills some more of his coffee. “Shit,” he hisses, wiping at the mess. “I mean- not you, Stanley. Again, sorry about the murder thing. I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”

 

Five is watching Klaus cooly. “Who’s Stanley? Is it somebody I killed?” He looks around the room again, as if he’ll somehow be able to make sense of the situation.

 

“We were at a donut shop.” Stanley bends at the waist to look more closely at Five and his snapped neck teeters a little with the movement.

 

Klaus, for his part, tries not to gag. “He- He says that you killed him at a donut shop?”

 

“Oh!” Five brightens a little. “One of those guys. Hey, no hard feelings, right, Stanley?”

 

Klaus and Ben share a quick look of confusion as Stanley scoffs. “No hard feelings? You killed me, you little shit!” He claws uselessly at Five and scowls when his fingers phase right through the man.

 

“I- I think there may be some hard feelings still, Five. He is... you know, dead?” Klaus gestures between the pair hesitantly.

 

The man only rolls his eyes, too old for his youthful face, and pushes away from the table. “Don’t worry about Stanley, Klaus. I’m sure he understands that it was kill or be killed.”

 

“You fucking freak!” Stanley shouts, loud and shrill. Klaus fights the urge to cover his ears as Ben winces in sympathy. “You murdered me!”

 

Klaus shrinks back at the anger. “He’s... he’s not happy, Five,” he translates.

 

His brother smirks. “Don’t be so dramatic. He’ll get over it. Later.”

 

And then he walks away, steps jaunty. Stanley howls and then fades from view in a painful flicker of existence. Ben and Klaus sit in a terse silence before the ghost finally heaves a heavy sigh.

 

“Sometimes I forget that you’re not the most fucked up Hargreeves anymore.”

 

“Oh, Benny-Boo! That’s so sweet!”

 

 

~~PLUS ONE~~BEN~~

 

 

As family meetings go, today’s has got to be up there in terms of general failure to communicate.

 

Luther is shouting about the morality of using Allison’s powers on time traveling assassins, Allison is shouting back about it being her moral code that’s at stake, and Five is talking over them both about the damage that manipulating time travelers could do to the linear-quantum-something-or-another. On the other side of the room, Diego is pointing at Vanya with a butterfly knife while she struggles not to either shut down or blow up and Klaus is perched cross-legged on the bar, unlit cigarette between his lips and copy of Great Expectations unopened in his lap.

 

“This is getting out of hand,” Ben says from behind him. “They’re basically devolving in front of our eyes.”

 

“I know,” Klaus slurs around his cigarette. His tone is absent, distracted, and it makes Ben scowl.

 

He pushes away from the bar to circle around front and face Klaus squarely. “What are you doing?”

 

The man ignores him, eyes squeezed shut, so Ben gives up on Klaus and drifts closer to the other Hargreeves. He circles them all a few times before he really can’t hold his tongue anymore. “Guys! Can’t you just stop and relax?!” He shouts to the unhearing group.

 

“Allison, don’t be stupid-”

 

“Don’t talk to her like that, Five-”

 

“I don’t need you to protect me, Luther-”

 

“Diego, stop yelling at me-“

 

“Come on, Vanya, this is nothing-”

 

“Just shut up!” Ben yells, temper boiling over. “All of you just shut up!” He runs a hand through his hair and wishes he could still feel the grounding sting of pain that should accompany it. “This is absurd! You’re all grown ass adults!”

 

“Hey, Ben-?”

 

Ben cuts Klaus off with a glare. “No, you shut up, too! Look at you! Just sitting there while your siblings fuck things up even more! I mean!” Ben spins and points at Luther, not taking his glare off of Klaus. “Look at Luther! He can’t even consider the possibility that he might be wrong! Or Diego! He’s always so quick to defend you guys but when it comes to being nice to you? He’s just a dick! And don’t even get me going on Allison! She’s probably the most powerful person in this room and all she ever wants to do is talk about her feelings!”

 

“Yeah, Ben, but-”

 

“And Vanya over here, thinking being ignored is the worst possible thing that can happen?! At least she was ignored by Dad instead of, you know, actively tortured?!” He throws his hands in the air in exasperation. “Honestly! I’m! Fucking! Dead! And you don’t hear me complaining!”

 

Klaus jerks to his feet, book falling to the ground. “Ben!”

 

“What??” The ghost snaps, tone hot and aggressive.

 

Klaus points weakly behind his brother. “They can... hear you,” he says, tone thready.

 

“What?” Ben’s anger fizzles out a little in his confusion. “Who can?”

 

There’s the soft drag of feet on carpet behind him and a shocked gasp and Ben turns to inspect the room as a whole. All of his siblings are frozen, staring right through Ben at- what? The wall? The girls both have tears in their eyes and Five looks like a juicy equation just fell from the gods of physics into his lap. Luther is stuck, mid gesture, mouth dropped open in shock and Diego is squinting in comical confusion.

 

“Is that...?” Vanya’s voice is soft, hesitant, hopeful.

 

Ben spins around in confusion. “Klaus, what are they looking at?”

 

“You,” Klaus breathes, face lighting up.

 

Ben scowls. “That’s not funny,” he scolds, crossing his arms.

 

“I’m not being funny,” Klaus murmurs. “I- I did it. They can really see you.”

 

Ben shakes his head. “I’m serious, don’t tease me about-”

 

“Ben...?” Allison’s voice quivers and she takes a shaky step forward.

 

Ben steps out of her path on reflex -even if he can’t feel it when people phase through him, it’s still uncomfortable- and Allison follows the motion. Ben sucks in a breath and then he realizes- he can feel the air. It’s stale and musty and it’s moving through his lungs. And as he breathes in, the cotton of his shirt stretches against his chest. A soft wetness on his cheeks reminds him what crying feels like.

 

He opens his mouth and licks his lips. They’re chapped, just like he remembers. “Hey.”

 

Hours later, after the hugs and the crying and the puppy pile, Klaus sends Ben a fond look. “Told you,” he whispers, voice thick with emotion.

 

“I guess that puts us at... hm? One to seven million?”

 

“Love you, Bentacles.”

 

“Love you more.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! Thank you!


End file.
